Counterfeit Dreams

Thursday, May 27, 2010

From the Preface to the hardback edition of Counterfeit Dreams, available August 2010

This was not an easy book to write. For three years following my departure from the Church of Scientology, I was not able to write anything sensible about my experience. Then gradually, the onion layers of indoctrination started to peel off, one by one, and I began to get some distance and perspective.

I began writing my account as a blog, posting it chapter by chapter. I did this to put pressure on myself to continue writing, to finish the narrative. And partly to reach out to others who may have had similar experiences.

I knew that I could never tell part of the story; it had to be the whole story or nothing. When I would try to tell people about the abuses I experienced within the Church of Scientology, they would ask me one thing: why had I stayed so long? And understanding that meant telling the whole thing.

My blog account attracted an audience, and they kept the pressure on me to finish. Some of these were people, like me, who had left Scientology and they found in me a kindred spirit. Others, to my surprise, were people still actively involved in the Church of Scientology. They were shocked by my revelations as to what goes on at the top levels of Scientology, and, after reading my story, they began to re-examine their own involvement with Scientology. Hundreds of people have now left the Church of Scientology as a direct result of reading my story. And every week I get an e-mail or two from people who have newly left.

As I often have to explain to people, I am not anti-Scientology. While I am no longer a Scientologist, I have many friends who are and who practice the subject outside the Church. I wish them well. My objection is to the abuses of organized Scientology and it is these that I continue to expose and fight against.

I have also heard from many people who were never involved with the Church of Scientology. For some who have been trapped in an abusive group or relationship, my story resonates. If this book can serve as either a cautionary tale or a message of hope, it will have been worth writing.

Order Your Copy Now

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The expanded, hardback edition of Counterfeit Dreams is now available. What began as my blog account of my years in Scientology has now been expanded to book length. 336 pages, hardback, with a picture section, an index and a glossary. order now from www.counterfeitdreams.com

About This Blog

I spent 35 years working for the Church of Scientology, all over the world, and at all echelons, including the top level at the Scientology International Base in Hemet, California. This blog contains my story. It has taken a while to write, but it is now complete. To read the chapters in order, refer to the list above. Please feel free to link this blog to other sites. I left Scientology three years ago and have no further connection to corporate Scientology. I am currently active in exposing their lies and abuses, and in providing whatever help I can to individuals and families who have been harmed by Scientology.

Learn about the crimes and abuses of Scientology on these sites

It was only when I lay there on the rotting prison straw that I sensed within myself the first stirrings of good. Gradually it was disclosed to me that the line separating good and evil passes not between states nor between social classes nor between political parties, but right through every human heart, through all human hearts. And that is why I turn back to the years of my imprisonment and say, sometimes to the astonishment of those about me, bless you, prison, for having been a part of my life.

Alexandr SolzhenitsynGulag Archipelago

Yes, my guard stood hard when abstract threatsToo noble to neglectDeceived me into thinkingI had something to protectGood and bad, I define these termsQuite clear, no doubt, somehow.Ah, but I was so much older then,I'm younger than that now.

Bob Dylan"My Back Pages"

"'Who controls the past,' ran the Party slogan, 'controls the future; who controls the present controls the past.' And yet the past, though of its nature alterable, never had been altered. Whatever was true now was true from everlasting to everlasting. It was quite simple. All that was needed was an unending series of victories over your own memory. 'Reality control,' they called it: in Newspeak, 'doublethink.'"

George Orwell1984

"Facts are stubborn things; and whatever may be our wishes, our inclinations, or the dictates of our passion, they cannot alter the state of facts and evidence."

John Adams

"Facts are stubborn things, but statistics are more pliable."

Mark Twain

“They are the agents ‘chosen’ (by history, by God, or by some other supernatural force) to carry out the ‘mystical imperative,’ the pursuit of which must supersede all considerations of decency or of immediate human welfare. Similarly, any thought or action which questions the higher purpose is considered to be stimulated by a lower purpose, to be backward, selfish, and petty in the face of the great overriding mission.”

Robert Jay Lifton, Thought Reform and the Psychology of Totalism

“Members are made to feel part of an elite corps of mankind. This feeling of being special, of participating in the most important acts of human history with a vanguard of committed believers, is strong emotional glue to keep people sacrificing and working hard.”

Steven Hassan, Combatting Cult Mind Control

"It is difficult to free fools from the chains they revere."

Voltaire

"It does not take a majority to prevail, but rather an irate, tireless minority, keen on setting brushfires of freedom in the minds of men."

Samuel Adams

"The charisma of certainty is a snare which entraps the child who is latent in us all."

Anthony Storr

"To sin by silence when they should protest makes cowards out of men."